Page 104 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 104
šolsko polje, letnik xxix, številka 1–2
liberal democracy that have become normalized in order to both lim-
it their meanings and use them to mean the opposite of what they have
meant traditionally, especially with respect to human rights, justice, in-
formed judgment, critical agency, and democracy itself. It is waging a war
over not just the relationship between economic structures but over mem-
ory, words, meaning, and politics. Neoliberalism takes words like free-
dom and limits it to the freedom to consume, spew out hate, and celebrate
notions of self-interest and a rabid individualism as the new common
sense. Equality of opportunity means engaging in ruthless forms of com-
petition, a war of all against all ethos, and a survival of the fittest mode of
behavior. The vocabulary of neoliberalism operates in the service of vio-
lence in that it reduces the capacity for human fulfillment in the collec-
tive sense, diminishes a broad understanding of freedom as fundamental
to expanding the capacity for human agency, and diminishes the ethical
imagination by reducing it to the interest of the market and the accumu-
lation of capital. Words, memory, language and meaning are weaponized
under neoliberalism. Certainly, neither the media nor progressives have
given enough attention to how neoliberalism colonizes language because
neither group has given enough attention to viewing the crisis of neoliber-
alism as not only an economic crisis but also a crisis of ideas. Education is
not viewed as a force central to politics and as such the intersection of lan-
guage, power, and politics in the neoliberal paradigm has been largely ig-
nored. Moreover, at a time when civic culture is being eradicated, public
spheres are vanishing, and notions of shared citizenship appear obsolete,
words that speak to the truth, reveal injustices and provide informed crit-
ical analysis also begin to disappear. This makes it all the more difficult to
engage critically the use of neoliberalism’s colonization of language. In the
United States, Trump prodigious tweets signify not only a time in which
governments engage in the pathology of endless fabrications, but also how
they function to reinforce a pedagogy of infantilism designed to animate
his base in a glut of shock while reinforcing a culture of war, fear, divisive-
ness, and greed in ways that disempower his critics.
You have written extensively on neoliberalism’s exclusively in-
strumental view of education, its reductionist understanding
of effectiveness and its distorted image of fairness. In what way
should radical pedagogy fight back neoliberalism and its educa-
tional agenda?
First, higher education needs to reassert its mission as a public good in or-
der to reclaim its egalitarian and democratic impulses. Educators need to
102
liberal democracy that have become normalized in order to both lim-
it their meanings and use them to mean the opposite of what they have
meant traditionally, especially with respect to human rights, justice, in-
formed judgment, critical agency, and democracy itself. It is waging a war
over not just the relationship between economic structures but over mem-
ory, words, meaning, and politics. Neoliberalism takes words like free-
dom and limits it to the freedom to consume, spew out hate, and celebrate
notions of self-interest and a rabid individualism as the new common
sense. Equality of opportunity means engaging in ruthless forms of com-
petition, a war of all against all ethos, and a survival of the fittest mode of
behavior. The vocabulary of neoliberalism operates in the service of vio-
lence in that it reduces the capacity for human fulfillment in the collec-
tive sense, diminishes a broad understanding of freedom as fundamental
to expanding the capacity for human agency, and diminishes the ethical
imagination by reducing it to the interest of the market and the accumu-
lation of capital. Words, memory, language and meaning are weaponized
under neoliberalism. Certainly, neither the media nor progressives have
given enough attention to how neoliberalism colonizes language because
neither group has given enough attention to viewing the crisis of neoliber-
alism as not only an economic crisis but also a crisis of ideas. Education is
not viewed as a force central to politics and as such the intersection of lan-
guage, power, and politics in the neoliberal paradigm has been largely ig-
nored. Moreover, at a time when civic culture is being eradicated, public
spheres are vanishing, and notions of shared citizenship appear obsolete,
words that speak to the truth, reveal injustices and provide informed crit-
ical analysis also begin to disappear. This makes it all the more difficult to
engage critically the use of neoliberalism’s colonization of language. In the
United States, Trump prodigious tweets signify not only a time in which
governments engage in the pathology of endless fabrications, but also how
they function to reinforce a pedagogy of infantilism designed to animate
his base in a glut of shock while reinforcing a culture of war, fear, divisive-
ness, and greed in ways that disempower his critics.
You have written extensively on neoliberalism’s exclusively in-
strumental view of education, its reductionist understanding
of effectiveness and its distorted image of fairness. In what way
should radical pedagogy fight back neoliberalism and its educa-
tional agenda?
First, higher education needs to reassert its mission as a public good in or-
der to reclaim its egalitarian and democratic impulses. Educators need to
102
